


moments of the past

by andrastes_grace



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Mid-Canon, Nightmares, Non-Graphic Violence, The Golden Cat (Dishonored)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 09:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12032847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrastes_grace/pseuds/andrastes_grace
Summary: Some of Emily's time in the Golden Cat.





	moments of the past

The first – and only – time they bring Emily her favourite foods (goats cheese and red onion tart, tyvian pear and little almond pastries) she watches it until it’s mouldy, savouring the rebellion that tastes better than food.  She knows her mother and Corvo would be horrified, Corvo most all since he hated (‘hates’ she corrects herself) wasting food, and the sickly-sweet smell of it rotting makes her feel nauseous.  But it’s worth it when High Overseer Campbell comes to check on her and she throws the whole lot directly in his face.

She gets nothing but sporadic bread and water for the next few days, but Emily doesn’t care.  She pictures the High Overseer with rotting pear dripping down his face and goes to sleep with a smile each night for a week.  The man doesn’t return for weeks, and when he does she meets his eyes while taking a bite out of a pear so old it tastes of wood and age.

Emily overhears the twins talking outside her room one evening.  From what she can hear it sounds like she’s never going to see the High Overseer again.  She thinks something bad must’ve happened to him, and then she’s sure (in the same way she’s sure that he isn’t dead) that _Corvo_ happened to him.

She hoped it hurt.

 

The first time she tries to escape, a little after the incident with the rotten food, she’s found trying to get the back door of the Cat open.  One of the twins – Morgan, she thinks – drags her back to her room, and she tells him she’s not scared of him.  She tells him Corvo is coming for her.

He gets down to eye level with her and tells her that Corvo is dead.  He tells her they chopped his head off and shoved it on a pike.  He tells her that the great Lord Protector died crying and pissing and begging for his life.

Emily bites his nose.  Corvo would’ve head butted him, she’s seen him do that before, but she’s aware she’s got a disadvantage in size.  Morgan hits her in return, a backhanded slap across the face, but by the next time she sees him her bruise has already faded and he still has a scar on his nose.

 

Emily often dreams that Corvo rescues her, that he takes her hand and leads her till they’re nearly out of the Cat.  But at the last moment – when she can see the open door – he drags her back, and rips off his face.  It’s the twins, or Burrow, or Campbell, or a whaling mask under there and he just laughs as he locks her back in her room.

 

When Emily hears the key in the lock she grabs a jug still half full of musty water.  Throwing it lacks any subtly or finesse, but it would at least make her feel better.  The door opens and she wonders if she died.  There’s a spectre in her doorway with the face of death, and she bites back a scream, and manages to keep a hold of her improvised weapon.  But the spectre just stands there, hands reaching up to its face.  It’s like her nightmare in reverse, because the face – the mask – comes away and it’s Corvo.  He looks older, and there’s new lines on his face marking out age that has come too quickly.  He’s younger than her mother is ( _was_ ) and now the age that should’ve been hers is on him.  And there’s fear in him that suits him as much as the deathly mask does. 

But all of that – the age and worry and fear - vanishes and there’s nothing except his old smile as she runs to him.

**Author's Note:**

> corvojess is mine now and arkane aren't allowed it back.
> 
> Jessamine was older than Corvo. They met when she was 19 and he was 18.


End file.
